In the latest bloggingheads.tv Conn Carroll and Bill Scher have an argument where they brandish dueling public survey results to make the case that the public is to the Left or the Right. How can they do this without totally fabricating their data? Because the average human being is not very smart, ergo, they aren’t consistent. If you want a slim little volume which collects all the survey data confirming this hypothesis, just read The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies. Americans are conservative because they want smaller government and lower taxes, and liberal because the want more services…at the same time! Since this is a democracy where politicians have to pander to voters, and a market economy where pundits and the media in general have to sell their services to the consuming public, no one has the heart to go Mencken. Of course, privately it’s a totally different game, as intellectuals on both the Right and the Left understand that the average human is a total ignoramus and there is a reason that direct democracy is used only sparingly in the modern world. Candor breaks out on both the Right and the Left when it comes to undecided voters because these inhabitants of the left tail of the Bell Curve aren’t big readers of mass media, and are a small enough constituency that the dull public doesn’t feel bad when pundits point and laugh….
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